When Northwestern Prof. Tom Durkin received his master’s degree in sociology from Florida State University, he decided living on the ocean was more exciting than being in the classroom.

So instead of trying to join the ranks of the nation’s top sociologists, he became a commercial deep-sea scalloper.

“Scalloping seemed like a good idea,” he said in an e-mail, adding that he was attracted by good pay, hard work and the ocean atmosphere.

Durkin is one of a handful of NU professors who have held an “odd job” before devoting themselves to academia.

For Durkin, the “odd job” of being a scalloper fit him well until he almost lost a foot, he said.

One night his sea planes, or stabilizers, failed in a rainstorm with 30-foot seas, Durkin said. The half-ton scallop drags were on the steel deck when the ship pitched sideways into a wave trough. The drag shot across the wet deck behind him and slammed into his right ankle, which he had braced on a steel block.

“One of my coworkers went white and said the last time that happened, the guy had his foot amputated instantly,” Durkin said. “I decided I was more attached to my foot than life on the sea, so I went back to school.”

Medill Prof. Craig LaMay became a full-time trucker in 1981, shortly after graduating from Brown University. He took the job because he wanted a life of adventure, he said.

“I had no money, so whatever I did I was going to have to pay my own way,” LaMay said in an e-mail. “My parents had taken me around the country when I was a kid, and my brother and I hitchhiked our way around it when we were in high school. Hitting the road and getting paid for it seemed as reasonable as anything at the time.”

LaMay continued to work as a truck driver on and off for three and a half years, even after participating in a 1983 national truck driver strike where a few drivers were shot and killed, he said.

LaMay said his experience as a trucker taught him what it’s like to work 80 hours a week and still have barely enough money to pay for housing and food. It also confirmed his love for his country, he said.

“I’ve seen every last corner of it and met every character you can think of, most of them kind, decent and honorable,” LaMay said. “A few of the others wanted to kill me and one or two tried.”

Medill senior Jackie Stewart, who took LaMay’s Law and Ethics of Journalism class in Winter Quarter, said she had no idea about her professor’s past job, but she wasn’t surprised.

“I can kind of picture him doing a variety of jobs because he has a laid back personality and he’s just easy going,” Stewart said. “I think he would adjust to anything he was assigned to do”.

Reach Lauren Levy at [email protected].